>You're saying the ends justifies the means. I don't think most people would agree.

The ends do justify the means. You don't think shipping food is more important than shipping cheap plastic toys from China? What an odd view.

>Maybe we should let out all of the bank robbers who were robbing to get money in order to eat and survive

I guess it might be news to you, but personal circumstances definitely are taken into account during sentencing in any nation state worth its salt.

> What's disingenuous is acting as if that statement matters at all when talking about large pollution sources.

Of course it does. People have choice when it comes to picking leisure activities.

Do you have choice when it comes to how stuff you buy is transported to you?

You can absolutely choose regional food over exotic imports. Sure, it gets harder to avoid imports when buying electronics, but that's a much smaller scale than food.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but American manufacturing has been decimated over the past several decades. Most stuff you buy these days is manufactured overseas and shipped to North America for assembly and/or sale.

What you seem to be advocating for is an almost complete cessation in consuming stuff, which is impossible to do without a big hit to one's standard of living.

Compared to all this, choosing a leisure activity that is fun, relaxing, and doesn't devastate the environment should be pretty fucking easy.

American manufacturing jobs have been decimated. American manufacturing is at or near historical highs in terms of actual output and value. America simply doesn't do much low-margin, low-end stuff anymore.

To use steel as an example, America still produces a HUGE amount of steel. But most is now specialty alloys (which requires more precision, control and ingredient purity) rather than bulk mild steel.

> Do you have choice when it comes to how stuff you buy is transported to you?

You can definitely choose how stuff is transported to you. One example is to purchase more locally sourced / produced goods.

Which is more damaging environmentally than shipped goods due to sheer efficiency of scale.

You could buy less, and more local, stuff.